Internships: Building Connections

Building Connections is a collaborative project developed through the generous support of an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Planning Grant. Three project partners – the Ohio History Connection, Kent State University, and Ohio Humanities – sought to understand and address the limitations and challenges for internships in public history.

Building Connections looks at the internship process through the three different users: professors at colleges and universities, students/interns, and internship supervisors at historic sites, libraries, or other history-related organizations. In seeking to understand the trends in public history internships, the partners solicited input from internship stakeholders to determine a final product for this work:

Conducted a survey of the three user groups, which garnered 374 responses

Visited ten internship host sites around the state to observe their internship programs

Hosted a summit of 55 representatives from the three user groups

Following the summit, three subcommittees located, researched, and developed resources for each user group. Those resources are presented here, in a website of information to help all three user types create the best internship experiences possible. This site will provide a place for sharing the internship standards for public history, archives, and cultural heritage information professionals-in-training.